Pete Boyle

I started out as a copywriter, then moved into growth strategy for digital businesses. I've spent years helping companies figure out how to reach the right people with the right message.

A few years back, I self-published a book on Amazon and managed to get it to the #1 spot in the free Kindle rankings for its category. That experience opened my eyes to two things. First, marketing know-how can make a real difference for authors. Second, the tools available to indie authors for promoting their work are, frankly, terrible.

I started advising other authors on their book launches, helping them grow sales and build audiences. The same problems kept coming up. Discoverability is broken. Readers can't find great indie books. Authors can't reach readers who'd love their work. The platforms that should connect them are either too expensive, too noisy, or both.

So I built Vagrant Press. A place where readers can find books worth reading at prices they can afford, and where authors can get in front of people who are actively looking for their next read.

I'm a big reader. For work, it's mostly business and growth strategy. But for everything else, it's Fantasy. Always has been.

My favourite series is Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. Nothing else comes close for sheer scale and ambition. If you haven't read it, start with Gardens of the Moon and give it until book three. It rewards patience like nothing else in the genre.

Close second is The First Law world by Joe Abercrombie. The original trilogy is brilliant, but The Age of Madness trilogy might be even better. Abercrombie writes characters you shouldn't like but can't stop rooting for.

More recently, I got into audiobooks thanks to Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. Jeff Hays narrates it and it's absolutely unhinged in the best possible way. If you've ever thought LitRPG wasn't for you, this might change your mind.

Favourite narrators: Jeff Hays (Dungeon Crawler Carl) and Steven Pacey (The First Law). Pacey's performance of Glokta is one of the best things I've ever heard.

After going through the book launch process myself, I realised how disconnected readers and authors are in the digital age. Readers want good books at fair prices. Authors want readers who'll genuinely enjoy their work. The tools to connect them just aren't good enough.

Book deal sites blast out mass emails of random freebies. Social media buries organic posts. Amazon's algorithms favour the already-famous. Indie authors with brilliant books get lost in the noise.

I wanted to build something that serves both sides properly. Real price data for readers. Real discoverability for authors. No noise. No spam. Just a better way to connect great books with the people who'll love them.